, the Computers and Society b. .............. A G O R A ....................... ag.o.ra (i/g'o-ro) n. A marketplace in ancient Greece, customarily used as a place of popular assembly. For members of this popular assembly, we invite short, substantive communications tightly-focused around a single experience, issue or theoretical point within the scope of this publication. SYMPHONI Magazine Looksat Technology wenty-five years ago, future forecasters made a prediction that seemed utter fantasy: By the year 2000, computers would be indispensable to our day-to-day lives. They would dominate not just at the office but at home, where we would pay our bills and plan our vacations onscreen while sipping hot chocolate in our slippers before the fireplace. At the time, I was typing my term paper on this subject from a longhand first draft, not quite grasping what I had written about. I had never touched a computer terminal - though an exotic few were visible in a remote corner of my high school's math department. Most office work was paperwork, as I could see from my parents' small but paper-pervaded business; the room-sized mainframes available in 1975, considered cuttingedge aids to corporate efficiency, would have been no use to them. It was another ten years before I had a computer in my office. It was shared among three employees, and we used it once a week or so. When a geeky colleague told me about his Internet chats (there was no World Wide Web yet), I thought he was joking. And even he would probably have scoffed at the thought of listening to music online. Fast-forward - very fast - to our new century, which finds us T umbilically tied to our PCs, laptops, and Palm Pilots. For many of us, cutting that cord would make work impossible. I remember only with difficulty how I functioned before email, and consider the Web so indispensable for orchestra-related research that I rarely close my browser during the workday. At home, my computer is in constant use for the very purposes that seemed fantastical a few years ago. Productivity gurus, of course, have told us we're no more efficient for all this electronic activity. We merely have to wade through more data to find what we seek. And with literally millions of web sites out there, the threat of overwhelm looms with every keyword search. This issue of S Y M P H O N Y led. note: JanIFeb 2000 -T.J.] offers you some shortcuts to the Internet information you need. On page 24, Managing Editor Rebecca Winzenried lists some useful starting points for classically oriented Web surfers - a great guide to keep on hand next to your PC. And on page 40, we feature just one work among what will soon be dozens of new additions to www.newmusicnow.org, a resource designed to help orchestras program contemporary American music. Later, when you're all webbed out, curl up on the couch - with slippers and hot chocolate if you like - for a good old-fashioned read. Ponder the past and future of an illustrious ensemble ("Founding Fathers," page 34) and music's power to heal political differences ("Lessons in Harmony," page 28). Then reflect that, for the foreseeable future at least, great orchestral music can only be made by gifted, passionate, disciplined people and their magnificent instruments - many of them centuries old. It's a comforting thought. • -Melinda Whiting Melinda Whiting is Editor in Chiefof SYMPHONY ~ Magazine,which is published bimonthlyby the AmericanSymphony Orchestra League.Reprinted by permission. See "I Want My MP3!" in the March/April issue ofSYMPHONYfor a guide to downloadingaudio of the classicsfrom the Internet. To subscribe, contact SYMPHONY at: AmericanSymphonyOrchestra League 33 W 60th Street, 5th Floor NewYork, NY 10023-7905 E-mail: editor@symphon)mrg Thanks to Melinda~r allowing me to reprint this, and to Gary Gocek~r bringing# to my attention!-T.J. Computersand Society, March 2000

/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/symphony-magazine-looks-at-technology-WlYgC0KAfg